An End to It All
by Ruby Casablanca
Summary: Strange how much his life now resembled a fairytale. A rather morbid, depressing fairytale where the hero never really saves the day. Not really. Someone always gets hurt. There were always casualties…and Skyfall was one of them.


An End to It All

He hesitates, the match burning between his fingers, yet he does not move to ignite the string. He stops, amidst the flames and shots and bombs tossing him about, and does not move, his mind frozen, and he doesn't quite understand why. There is so much to lose yet so much to gain in this one second; his next move could make all the difference, yet he can't pull the trigger.

He's not used to this feeling. He's not used to the confliction. He has been trained not to ask questions, been employed in the ready - fire - aim business for too long to care, but now, it feels like his whole world could collapse down on him. And literally, it might have to.

But he is out of time; there is no more time to think. He has to act now or the entire plan will be shot to hell, himself included in the mix. He was used to the whole resurrection shtick, but even he doubted his ability to survive what he was about to enact.

That match grew heavier in his hands, the flames hotter, and he shoved all thoughts and emotions aside long enough to make contact with the wire. It was done, finished, no going back, no second chances. All there was left to do is run. And he did run; he ran as fast as he could, as far and long as his battered body could carry him through the cramped, underground tunnels. He felt his lungs burn, the temperature grow, but there was no inferno licking at his heels. Surprised, he stopped to inquire its whereabouts, only to be faced with its sudden fury. He had no time to think, only act. He threw himself into an adjacent cavern just before the roar of the flames flew by him, lighting up the path ahead of him.

He couldn't see, just visions of red and orange lined his sights, distorting everything. He was blind, barely feeling his way around the scorching rocks, the crumbling foundation. He could practically imagine the explosion, the towers of flames consuming his memories, throwing the remains of his ancestral home up into the air, rendering only their ashes in return. He could see the fire devastate that house, shatter the windows, scorch through the living room, dining room, every single hall, burning through his old bed, his old clothes, his old life, reducing it all to cinders.

He breathed in its smoke; he wore its dust and rubble on his skin stuck together by the blood that ran down his face. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…

But he could spend no more time on sentiment. He had a job to do, people to protect, people who were counting on him to get the job done. There was still one more threat left to deal with until he could say that. Catching his breath, he sprinted down the rest of the tunnels, not caring about all the obstacles that laid in his way after all the years of non-use. The last time he had seen the cavern, he was a boy, a devastated, recently-orphaned boy; when he came out he wasn't a boy anymore. Now, nearly thirty years later, he was a man, yet he had never felt more like a boy, chasing should-be ghosts down a tunnel in hopes to save the day.

Strange how much his life now resembled a fairytale. A rather morbid, depressing fairytale where the hero never really saves the day. Not really. Someone always gets hurt. There were always casualties…

And Skyfall was one of them.

He finally reaches the end of the tunnel, breathing in his first bouts of clean air since earlier in the day, before all the shooting. He can distinguish the flickers of orange and yellow flaring up against the black night above him. Rising up from under the earth, he can see the chapel upon the hill nearly a hundred feet away. That's where they are; that's where he needs to be. But he can also see _him_, the dead man walking, and he immediately refocuses. He has a job to do. Protect M, protect his country, both of which he would gladly die doing.

There is no question to what he has to do next, but he can't resist. He can't help himself.

Slowly, he turns around, and from afar, the view of his burning home could actually be described as beautiful. The mansion blazed to life, illuminating the sky, almost giving off the illusion of daylight. He could see he damage, the pitiful truth of what had been left from his home which had been all but whole merely hours ago. There was nothing but burning wood and mortar. The stones fell; the decorum crackled and fizzled.

There was nothing left.

And that was fine. He had never returned after his parents' deaths and he never really had any intention to ever again after this, so why leave it for time to rot away? Besides, it would've been destroyed somehow, if not by himself than by nature or some other selfish, man-made design. He had no reason to keep open a dead, festering wound. No, he had learned that a clean cut was the best, but then again, he never really played by the book. Things were always messy when it came to him. He hated the memories that he had attached to that place, all the pain and suffering, yet they made him stronger, made him who he was. Had things been different, he may have lived a completely opposite life to the one he led now, and that left a bad taste in his mouth.

No. He always hated that place anyway.

But there was still a part of him that clung on to it. He could still remember his father, his mother, days spent learning to hunt or reading in the library, curling up to a fire, his mother's voice as she sang him to sleep. He could still remember all the good things too, and despite the pain they put him through, those were things he never wanted to forget either. He never wanted to forget about Skyfall, even as it burned and sputtered out its last bits of life before him, and that was something even he could not deny. And honestly, that was the saddest part.

Because actually, in his own way, he had always cared about that place.


End file.
